Four railway workers die after being struck by limited-express train in Tochigi

KANUMA, TOCHIGI PREF. – Four railway workers died after being struck by a limited-express train at a Tobu Nikko Line station in the city of Kanuma, Tochigi Prefecture, Tobu Railway said Thursday.

Authorities received an emergency call at around 10:45 a.m. saying that workers had been hit by a train. Four men in their 50s to 60s were taken to hospital and were confirmed dead.

The railway company said the Spacia X2, a six-car limited-express train from Tobu Nikko Station bound for Tobu Asakusa Station in Tokyo, hit the workers, who were weeding on railroad tracks at Shin-Kanuma Station.

The four were Kazuyoshi Ishikawa, 67, and Toshihiko Watanabe, 65, who are both from the city of Utsunomiya in Tochigi, and Shigenobu Oke, 53, and Kazunari Sato, 54, both from the city of Nikko in the prefecture, the Tochigi Prefectural Police said.

Tobu Railway officials held a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday afternoon.

“We deeply apologize to the bereaved families,” the head of its railway business division, Takao Suzuki, said. “We will thoroughly implement measures to prevent a recurrence so that such a serious accident never happens again,” he added.

According to the company, the four worked for a subcontractor. A total of 10 employees were engaged in the work. The four victims were near the tracks under the platform to spray herbicide.

A worker had been deployed as a lookout some 80 meters away to warn other workers of approaching trains and use a flag to signal the train driver once the workers had evacuated. The train driver said he sounded the horn after seeing a signal from a lookout.

Another lookout, who was supposed to be some 300 m away, was not in a position to communicate with other lookouts, the company said. Details are being investigated, it said.

None of the around 50 passengers on the train were injured, Tobu Railway said.

The Japan Transport Safety Board has sent three railway accident investigators to the site.

Train services were temporarily suspended between Shin-Tochigi and Shimo-Imaichi stations following the accident but were resumed at 3:22 p.m., the company said. The service suspension affected some 2,600 passengers.

In February 1999, an out-of-service train struck and killed five workers during cable replacement work on the Yamanote Freight Line operated by East Japan Railway in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward.

In January 2006, three workers of West Japan Railway were killed after being hit by a train during track maintenance work on the Hakubi Line in the town of Kofu in Tottori Prefecture, while two other workers were injured.